


You Know My Love'll Not Fade Away

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hotel Rooms, Light In The Dark Places, Love, M/M, Nightmares, Tolkien References, protective!Michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James spends the night with Michael. For actual sleep, not sex (this time). Nightmares, comforting, overuse of Tolkien quotes, love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know My Love'll Not Fade Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telperion_15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telperion_15/gifts).



> For the prompt: _a light for you in dark places._ Title, opening, and closing lines from Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," this time. (I'm pretty sure this whole little 'verse is going to come from friends' requests; anyone else want anything...?)

_I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be_   
_you're gonna give your love to me_   
_I wanna love you night and day_   
_you know my love’ll not fade away_

 

The bed’s a minefield of possibilities. Potentialities. Nightmares, safety, blankets and cotton.

Michael stands next to it, reminding himself to breathe, and holds out a hand to James. “You did say you wanted me to sleep with you…”

“I did,” James agrees, after a second and a small lip-lick, a gesture that Michael’s seen probably a million times, but that leaves a tiny pinprick hole in his heart regardless, because he’s never seen James nervous in the bedroom, with him, before.

But those blue eyes lift away from their silent communion with pillows and find Michael’s face, and Michael doesn’t know what James might be seeing there, but a smile turns up and sits glimmering in the ocean-current depths.

“I did,” James says again, more firmly this time. “I want you here. With me.”

“Are you sure?” He can’t stop himself.

But James actually laughs, so maybe that wasn’t the wrong question after all. And then short and eloquent fingers reach out and curl into his. And Michael’s heart finds itself comforted, wounds closing.“Very sure.”

“I love you.”

“And I love you. You said…are you sure you don’t want to? Don’t want the sex, I mean. Tonight. You don’t want to have sex with me tonight—”

“James,” Michael interrupts, and tugs on the hand, until James comes closer, near enough for Michael to wrap both arms around his shoulders. “I _want_ to have sex with you. Honestly, you’ve no idea how close I came to pulling over, at every single red light, and dragging you off my bike and into the closest motel or alley or up against a wall or something—”

“Why didn’t you? You could have.” The whisky-and-tartan folds of that voice sound a bit happier, though, intrigued but closer to amusement. “I wouldn’t’ve minded.”

“I—maybe tomorrow, then—or definitely tomorrow, the next time we go somewhere and you’re holding onto me like—but that’s not what you asked me to do. You asked me to sleep with you. To hold you. To be here for you. And I’m going to do that. All right?”

James hesitates, briefly, then smiles. Stretches up on tiptoes and touches his lips to Michael’s. The warmth lingers, after. “Yes. Can we sleep naked, at least? I like seeing you naked.”

“Anything you want.” Might be the fastest he’s lost clothing in his life, not to mention the most ungracefully. But James is watching, and has made the request, so promptness equals proof of affection, right?

James tugs off his own shirt, leaving that hair standing up in ruffled waves; pauses to smile at him again. Michael finds himself smiling back. So’s the bed, awaiting them. Even the pillows plump themselves up in their eagerness to be of use.

“Here,” he offers, very softly, and puts his own hands on the waist of James’s jeans, fingertips over worn denim. “Can I?”

Which earns a nod, rather wide-eyed; Michael understands. They’ve been naked together before, of course. But not like this. This feels new. Sweeter, and deeper, and brighter, and _new_.

They’d left that first script-reading hand in hand, earlier. No one’d said anything, despite a few curious glances from co-stars and writers and producers. Ian McKellen had grinned too broadly at them. Michael’d utterly failed to not blush, and hadn’t let go of James.

He’s nearly lost James once already, through his own thoughtlessness. Never again. He has a second chance, and he’s going to hold on with both hands and all his might.

He’s decently strong. He’s not a bodybuilder, but he’s got some muscles. That’s a fair amount of might.

James raises an eyebrow at said hands. “I thought you were doing something…”

“I am! Sorry. I was just thinking…”

“I know. Me, too.” There’s a wealth of other sentences in that voice, layers of unsaid words: _I shouldn’t’ve left you that way_ versus Michael’s own _I should never have said the things that made you need to leave_ , the _I want to trust you_ answered by _I_ _want to be the person you aren’t afraid to trust_ , an _I’m sorry_ met with _I’m sorry, too_.

James had hopped onto the back of his motorcycle, no protest, when Michael’d led them over to it and raised questioning eyebrows. Had wrapped arms around his waist and let Michael whisk him off into the fading day, back to the hotel, into the restaurant first because he’d heard James’s stomach grumbling and that was part of this, also, needing to prove that he could be there for James, in every conceivable way, even before James thought to ask.

He wants James both to ask, and to never need to ask. He wants James to feel safe enough to ask. For anything.

It’s a nice hotel room. Luxurious. Anonymously opulent as only the best temporary spaces can be. Right now, though, the anonymity’s ideal: no demands, no requests, no undesired intimacies. Only what they bring in with them, himself and James.

James puts his hand over Michael’s, lightly. “Second thoughts?”

“Oh fuck no,” Michael says, horrified, and gets James naked in what has to be record time, and then yanks blankets down and collects all the firework-freckles in his other arm and topples them both into bed, and James is laughing, where he’s ended up beneath Michael’s weight and surrounded by pillow-fluff.

“All right, that was impressive…”

“It was? I mean…yes. Good. Entirely meant to be. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” James puts an arm around his back, and shows every sign of wanting to stay exactly in place, cheerfully unclothed and pinned down by Michael’s body atop his and rather noticeably happy about this fact. “Are you _really_ sure about the sex? Because you seem to be liking this position. And I could—”

“James,” Michael says, mostly a groan, and rolls off of him, and swats at the light switch until the lamp turns off with a disappointed click, and then gets both arms back in place before the blue eyes have time to be more than confused. “I’m trying to be chivalrous. For you. You’re not helping.”

“Sorry.” A feather-light kiss over his shoulder, the faint tickling of hair as James settles down again. “I mean…really sorry. I’m doing it on purpose. Well, sort of. Distractions.”

The curtains’re open in the middle, because he’s forgotten to shut them; the clouds are hiding the moon, though, so the light falls in as a smoke-stripe of grey, one long line across the bed.

“Distractions.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He hesitates, awkward now; the eyes are out of his direct line of sight, that head resting on his chest, and the right words aren’t coming to mind. “Do you want…will it help if I hold you? Like this? Or is that…worse?”

“Oh…because I might feel more…trapped…no, let’s try. I can hear your heartbeat from here. I like that.”

“Good. I like you being here. Naked.” He slides one hand along James’s back, across the curve of that tempting waist, over the span of one hip. Wonders if he really can pick out all the freckles by touch, or if he’s just imagining them, and whether James will let him find them all later, using his tongue.

James wriggles against him, contentedly. “You’re nicely warm. Like a radiator. I approve.”

“Oh, you do? Do you also approve of this?”

“No tickling!”

“You have ticklish _elbows?_ ”

“No! What were you trying to do—stop that—seriously, I’m not responsible for any bodily injuries!—anyway?”

“…I was trying to move your arm. Over here. Not my fault you have sensitive elbows, as much as I’m enjoying that fact. Is this warmer?”

“Maybe,” James grumbles, obviously reluctant to give in, but leaves his arm tucked securely under Michael’s, so Michael decides that should count as a success. Plus, he has a brand-new discovery to exploit at some future date.

“Don’t you dare.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything about your elbows.”

“Yes, you were.” James kisses him again. “I can read your mind, remember? Also, yes, we can do that thing you were imagining, with your good tie and me and this headboard, tomorrow.”

“You mean the blue tie, right? The one that matches your eyes.” And apparently James has some interesting fantasies, ones which hadn’t previously occurred to Michael’s brain but are decidedly occurring now. In glorious color.

“Obviously. I can see you’ve put some thought into this. I appreciate the commitment to detail, you understand.” James sighs, stretches one leg, curls it up again. “Thank you again. In case you’d not noticed.”

“Feeling better?”

“Let’s find out. I love you. Good night, Michael. Please hold me while I fall asleep.”

“Good night, James,” Michael whispers back, “I love you,” and holds on as tightly as he thinks might be safe.

James does slip off into dreams, after a while, inhales and exhales slowing into a balanced rhythm. That’s something, Michael thinks, at least they’re comfortable enough for that, but of course it’s not falling asleep that’s the problem. It’s what might be waiting for James, on the other side.

He doesn’t let himself go to sleep. He’s not convinced that he can sleep, anyway, with the concern and the excitement fizzing away in madly warring bubbles under his skin: James is here, lying trustingly in his arms, in his bed. He knows what happened, the last time they tried. The last time James trusted him this much.

James breathes out, in his sleep. Moves, momentarily restless. “Shh,” Michael whispers, and watches the single silver ray of nighttime light travel across messy hair and the shell-shape coil of one ear.

James moves again. Whimpers, softly. Then goes very still, tense, and he’s not awake but the fear is tangible, radiating from furrowed eyebrows, tightly closed lashes, frozen shoulders. Audible in each tiny escaping sound.

“Shh,” Michael tries again, desperate. “James. It’s a nightmare. It’s only a nightmare. Please. I’m here.”

The words don’t work. James shivers, then stops, breathing hard and fast.

 _Someone watching me,_ James’d said _. Never a face, just a person, just standing there beside the bed, and I know if I move or scream or—then he’ll do something, I don’t know what, but something, and I can’t—and then I wake up_. And then, glancing away _, it’s not even a proper nightmare, I know, no falling from great heights or one-eyed monsters or creatures in the closet—_

 _James,_ he’d said, through the blank whiteness of shock, _no, you’re wrong, that’s a fucking horrific nightmare, please let me help, please tell me when you’re scared._

He’d been scared, too. He’s scared now, watching James in pain and so afraid that even the expressive hands’re petrified and immobile. Feeling so damned _helpless_.

“James,” he says, more loudly, and James whimpers once more, sound not contained at all by the useless feathery pillows, and then gasps and bolts upright and sits there pressed up against the headboard and shaking, eyes huge, blue swallowed up and drowned in black pupils.

Michael sits up, too. Reaches out a hand in his direction, wanting to touch, wanting to pull James back into his warmth.

James flinches at the movement, enough to be visible. And the eyes aren’t seeing him, in the darkness, or if they are they don’t recognize him at all.

He wants to apologize, to say something, out loud. Looking at those eyes, he can’t.

Gingerly, under the weight of the night, the color and heaviness of lead, he draws his hand back. After a second, offers it again, more carefully, holding it out precisely between them. Open. Palm up. And he thinks, hopelessly, as hard as he can, about seeming, about _being_ , harmless.

If James needs space, breathing room, he can do that. He can not touch those terrified shoulders, even if the waiting skewers his own heart with broken glass. He _can_ wait. For James.

Who looks at him, through a abrupt curious spill of moonbeam—clouds sympathetically parting for the light—and then flings himself across the bed and into Michael’s arms.

Michael, astounded, amazed, disbelieving, breathes in and holds him, everywhere, as James tries to burrow into the embrace, shaking all over; wraps an arm around his back, strokes one hand through quivering hair, cradling that head in place against his shoulder; drapes a leg over shorter freckled limbs, for good measure, and feels James let out an uneven breath of air across his chest. “Michael…”

“Yes? Definitely me, I’m here, I’m right here, I’ve got you, I’m not letting you go…”

James isn’t quite crying. The inhales and exhales come in terrified little gulps, though, and hands cling to him as if James is afraid this is only another, crueler, part of that dream, a tantalizing and evanescent glimpse of comfort.

“I’m here,” Michael tells him, one more time, and maybe that comes out a bit too fiercely, as his arms tighten, but James doesn’t seem to mind, only presses their bodies closer together, skin to skin, intimate and naked and real.

“I’m here, and this _is_ real, and you’re all right, you’re safe, I swear, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Not ever. I love you. And I’m always going to be here for you. Even in your dreams, if you want, just think about me, right there with you, and I can punch any of your nightmares in the face if you want me to, dream-me is very good at that, you know.” He runs fingers through all the hair again. It falls like silk over his hand.

James tucks his face into the hollow between Michael’s neck and collarbone. Trembles. But talks, through the emotion. The words shiver out along Michael’s skin and into the night. James trying. “You…have magical nightmare-related superpowers? Since when? And…can I ask you…could you use them on my behalf? Please?”

“Since when…I think since you told me you love me. Those are pretty powerful words, you know. When you say them. I can do anything, for you.”

James makes a noise that might be a laugh, at that. The moonlight, hovering worriedly in the air, perks up. Fractionally.

“And you don’t need to ask. All my superpowers’re at your command. Just don’t ask me for crossword puzzle help, unless you want incredibly wrong answers.”

“I…like your wrong answers. They make me smile. And…anyway…you’re not always wrong. You’re right more often than you think you are. You knew the one about Viggo Mortensen’s tattoo, that time…”

“Viggo’s a very nice person.” They can talk about crosswords and fellow actors and normality, if that’s what James wants, if that’s helping. And it is helping, he thinks, feeling James relax, bit by bit, in his arms. More, then. And maybe he can get James to smile again. “And, speaking of…you know what Galadriel says to Frodo? About light, in the dark places?”

“I knew you were a Star Wars geek,” James says, to his chest, “didn’t realize you were a Tolkien fan…”

“You don’t know everything about me. Yet. But. Um. You can. If you want to.”

James does start to smile, at that. Michael can feel it. And the thrill of relief is dizzying in its suddenness, the formerly nondescript hotel room bursting at the seams with elation and gratitude and joy. Even more so when James answers, very quietly, “Yes.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. And…yes, I do.”

“…what?”

“I do know which quote you mean. I’m not sure I’d make a good Frodo—I always wanted to be Gandalf, actually, to have the staff and the hat and make fireworks—but yes. When all other lights go out…”

“I can be your light,” Michael promises, soft-voiced, “in the dark places,” and then, because James _is_ smiling, he can hear it in that spectacular accent, “and you’d make a perfect hobbit, come on, the hair, the height, the ale, the pipeweed—oh, no, you quit smoking, sorry, remind me to throw mine away in the morning—I can see you giving presents to other people on your own birthday, and laughing. I like seeing you laugh.”

“I can kind of picture you as Aragorn,” James observes, voice next-door to calm now, and resettles his head against Michael’s determined bulwark of strength. “If Viggo wouldn’t mind. Although that does suggest a new and interesting dimension to Middle-Earth history, considering our current positions. Michael?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“What—no. No, James, don’t—I _want_ to help. I want to hold you.” He wriggles around, shoves some inconveniently persistent pillows out of the way, kisses James firmly. Then kisses the tip of that freckled nose, too, for good measure, and watches startled eyes blink, in the aftermath. “Seriously. I love you, and I want to be here for you. So really, when you think about it, you’re making _me_ feel better, by letting me do this.”

He’s half-teasing, of course. Saying any words he can think of, in the moment. But the words’re also true.

James, in person, never seems short or small or any of that; the world always notices, whenever James walks into a room or a set or a scene. And James really isn’t much shorter than he is; a couple of inches, if that. But here in the bed those toes just brush Michael’s ankles, and James leaves his head on a supportive shoulder, and Michael wants to hold him forever, the two of them breathing in unison now under the light of the moon.

“I’m making you feel better,” James says.

“Yes.”

“Would it…possibly make you feel even more better if you kissed me again?”

“It definitely would.” He keeps the kiss to a gentle meeting of lips, regardless. No pressure. No forcefulness. James opens his mouth, and kisses back, welcoming and appreciative. Michael rests his head atop all the fluffy hair, after. “Same dream, though? I mean—you don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want—I only wondered if—”

“If it’d be different, at all?” James sighs. Shivers, one more time; Michael rubs a hand over his back, protection for all the exposed cinnamon-ivory skin. “I know. I wondered, too. But it was the same. Felt the same.”

“I’m so sorry. I’d make this better, for you, if I—you know that offer about being there, in your dreams, that still stands. Every night.”

“Oh, well…you think you aren’t already in my dreams? Oh—no, not like that, you’re not in the nightmares, don’t—I very much didn’t mean that.” This time James is the one who kisses him, swift and apologetic and certain enough to banish that particular horror for good. “I only meant I have had dreams about you. Good ones. Um…that sounded much less creepily obsessive in my head. Sorry.”

“I had dreams about you, too.” So many. _Those_ kinds of dreams, yes, admittedly those; but the ones he’d remembered the most clearly, waking up, hadn’t been the vividly erotic fantasies, but the heartrendingly quiet moments, the half-drowsing belief that this time he might open his eyes and find compact warmth and freckles and blue eyes and forgiveness there beside him.

“Good, we’re evenly obsessive, then.” James goes silent for a while, long enough that Michael starts to wonder whether he’s fallen back to sleep, except the breathing isn’t quite regular enough for that. The moon, outside, tiptoes back behind its clouds, and nestles down. The room, wrapped up in the satiny greys and blacks of night, encloses them in its fortifications. Safe on the inside, Michael loves James, and believes, and hopes, and has faith, with everything he is, that James loves him, too.

Light in the dark places, he thinks, and breathes in the scent of James’s hair. He can do that. They can do this. Together.

“Michael,” James ventures.

“Everything all right? Or—not all right, I mean, of course you’re not—are you—feeling better, at least? At all? Or are you not comfortable, I can move if you’re not comfortable—”

“I’m fine. I don’t want you to move. And I’m very comfortable. I was wrong, though. Earlier.”

“…what?”

“I told you it felt the same. But that’s not right. I was thinking…” James props himself up on an elbow, meets Michael’s anxious gaze. “I was thinking that it didn’t feel the same. The nightmare, maybe, yes. But when I woke up, when I saw you here…”

“And I scared you.”

“No.” A very definite headshake. “I just—I couldn’t believe it, for a second. That you were real. So…kind of the opposite of being scared. Being…un-scared. Because you were here, and you could hold me. So it wasn’t the same, after all. It was…better, this time. Because of you.”

“You—it was—really?”

“It was. Really.” One more smile, brighter than the vanished moon. “Especially when you started quoting the Lord of the Rings at me.”

“Not all who wander are lost,” Michael says, and James says “You’ll find me if I’m lost, you always do,” and so Michael reminds him, because it’s talk or cry, “Superpowers, James, we’ve established that,” and James, through a perfect mixture of laughter and tears, says, “Thought you wanted a tail, for yours,” and Michael buries his face in all the hair and whispers “I fucking love you.”

“I know. And I love you. Hold me, while I go back to sleep? I think I’ll be all right, this time.”

“You will be.” And if not, if they have to fight this battle all over again, that’ll be all right too. Because they can. They can do anything, armed with moonlight and strong arms and Tolkien references and the incontrovertible truth of those _I-love-you_ s making a shield in the air. “You’re only going to have good dreams, all right? With me in them. The kind we can recreate when you wake up. If you want that.”

“Promises,” James says, and yawns, and grins. “You’d better be prepared to follow through, then.”

“James,” Michael says, “yes. Completely.” Yes. Completely.

Through everything.

James falls asleep smiling, in his arms. Michael tries valiantly to stay awake, and manages for quite a long time, but he’s worn out as well, too many emotions in too short a time, and he doesn’t notice when he drifts off at last, to the reassuring cadence of steady breaths below his ear.

The next morning, he wakes up first. _First_. Before James. Who murmurs something unintelligible in his sleep, and scrunches up his nose, and sticks a foot between Michael’s bare calves, contentedly.

The shockwave of delight must be tangible, despite his attempts to not move a muscle in any way at all, because James stirs and yawns and blinks, brilliantly beautiful under early sunlight and improbable rumpled hair. And tips his head up, the rest of him remaining happily encircled by Michael’s protective embrace, and says, “Good morning,” and smiles.

 

_I'm a-gonna tell you how it's gonna be_   
_you're gonna give your love to me_   
_a love to last more than one day_   
_a love that's love, not fade away_   
_well, a love that's love, not fade away_


End file.
